One of our clients from Georgia had an old Colt 1911 that was pretty beat up and he wanted to get it coated. He told us he wanted it to be a themed after The Black Watch. The Black Watch is an Infantry Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland who’s motto is “Nemo Me Impune Lecessit.” Which means “No One Provokes Me With Impunity.” Our client wanted this engraved on his 1911 slide and then color filled with red. The Black Watch traditionally wear a plaid kilt, which contains blue, green and black. Along with their plaid kilt their dress uniform contains a bright red shirt, a black hat with a bright red feather. Our client was kind enough to send his Black Watch plaid shirt along with the Colt 1911 so we could color match the blue and green.
Upon arrival of the 1911, we completed stripped the firearm. We removed every pin, screw, spring and pushed off the sights. Then we sent the slide to Jeff at LEO Armory for deep metal engraving. We got the slide back about a week later and the engraving was amazing! It was very deep, which made it much easier to color fill. Here is what it looked like when we received the slide back from LEO Armory:
As you can see, this Colt 1911 has seen better days. But that was about to change! We immediately got to work. We submitted all of the parts to our proprietary preparation process, which is part of the reason why we are able to offer our LIFETIME GUARANTEE! After the parts were prepped we coated the small components in Cerakote Smith & Wesson Red and the grips and grip screws in Cerakote Graphite Black. Then the hard part arrived… mixing colors to match the Black Watch blue and green. For both colors we started with a base color of Cerakote Sky Blue. Then we added a few drops of this, a few drops of that and continued mixing until the color was just right. We coated the slide and barrel in our custom mixed green and coated the frame in our custom mixed blue.
Once the parts were finished curing, we reassembled everything, color filled the engravings and performed a function test. The end result was stunning. Seeing where this firearm started to where it is now is like night and day. It went from old, beat and corroded to looking brand new and never having to worry about corrosion issues again! The color scheme may not be very popular with most people, but it still looks incredible. Now that you know the back story on why those colors made it onto the Colt 1911 you may be able to appreciate it a little more.
